The invention relates generally to networked computer systems, and more particularly to a graphical user interface for use with an on-line shopping and information service.
The development of broad-based networked computer systems, such as the Internet and the World-Wide Web (the xe2x80x9cwebxe2x80x9d), provide a user, such as an individual consumer, opportunities to access a seemingly limitless variety of goods, services, and information. However, finding exactly what one wants on such a network can be a daunting and frustrating task. The growth of these systems, while providing access to an expanding body of information, can also confound a user looking for particular information.
Conventional solutions to finding desired web sites, typically identified by a universal resource locator (xe2x80x9cURLxe2x80x9d) use search engines or similar methods. A user typically enters a term or key word (or words) associated with what the user was looking for, often as a Boolean string, and the search engine performs a search for the identified terms. The process may be speeded up by having the search engine search a string of characters or terms associated with the URL, rather than the entire site. The associated terms, and hence the results of the search, depend on who chose the terms. Thus, the number of sites, or xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d, returned by a search engine is often unwieldy and contains a number of sites not related to the user""s desired result. The number of irrelevant sites can often be limited with a more comprehensive search request, but this usually requires some knowledge about Boolean logic, definition of search strings, the terms that might be associated with a URL, and preferably some idea as to how the search engine will perform the search.
Such understanding of computer search techniques is often beyond the experience of casual computer users, who may just want to go on-line to quickly to perform a specific task. Even if one is an experienced computer user and has a clear understanding of Boolean logic and the appropriate search terms, the time involved in crafting the search string may be undesirably long. For example, if a user wants to go on-line during a commercial break of an entertainment broadcast while sitting on a sofa to do some shopping, he might not want to type in a long search string and/or sort through a long list of hits.
Another time-consuming feature of using conventional methods is that, once a list of sites is returned, the next step is to connect to a selected site. Such connections can be time-consuming for a variety of reasons, and occasionally cannot be made because of system problems.
Thus, an Internet user interface that provided rapid access to desired information and that was intuitive for a casual user would be desirable. It would be further desirable if the user interface supplied the desired information with a reduced amount of undesired information.
Internet users are faced with too many returns (xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d) using conventional search tools, and finding the desired sites can be time-consuming and cumbersome. The problem is particularly troublesome for casual computer users who are not technically familiar with computer search techniques.
The present invention provides a user interface that displays a number of icons, each icon looking like and representing a building in a village. Selecting an icon returns a display of providers of goods or services, each of the providers being logically associated with the building represented by the icon. The providers are pre-selected, thus allowing rapid display of provider information without requiring accessing each provider""s URL. Selecting a provider returns a display, commonly referred to as a xe2x80x9cpagexe2x80x9d, relating to the goods, services, or information available from that provider. Selecting a provider retrieves data from a local data storage location to generate a display of information related to the provider. The data storage location may thus store information sufficient to create pages for many or all of the providers associated with an icon, without needing to access a URL of any provider. Thus, the user interface serves as a virtual island or town, where goods or services can be obtained by a user without hopping from one URL to the next. In a particular embodiment, the user interface sends order information to the providers when a user is finished selecting goods and services. At this point, the user interface may address the providers"" URLs.
In a further embodiment, the URLs of the providers are accessed by the user interface software in a background operation to retrieve data from the provider""s site that is loaded into the local data storage location. This data retrieval may be performed according to a request from the user interface or according to signal from the service provider indicating that current data is available to replace previously stored data.